by Lisa Jewell
She watched Ivor Novello in his seat across the hall. He was on his feet and his eyes were alight with joy.
All around them the audience pulsated with repressed dancing. The energy was extraordinary, and Arlette realised that for some people this was their first exposure to jazz music in a live setting. She allowed herself to rock gently in her seat, to nod her head in time to the rhythm, and for the next hour she lost herself in the sound of the music, in the world it suggested of bayous and crocs, of verandas and pineapples, mint juleps and muggy nights.
But as the show drew to a close she started to feel anxious again. For now she would discover whether or not she would see Godfrey, and whether or not he would show her even the slightest interest.
‘Miss De La Mare!’ he greeted her warmly, drying the sweat from his face and hands with a fluffy white towel. ‘Miss Miller. And Mam’zelle,’ he smiled at Minu, ‘I do remember your face but your name escapes me.’
‘Again,’ teased Minu. ‘That is the second time you have forgotten me, Mr Pickle. My name is Minu McAteer.’
‘Of course,’ he smiled, ‘of course. I will not forget a third time, of that I assure you.’
The three ladies stood before Godfrey Pickle and he smiled at each of them in turn. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, ‘what a lucky man I am.’
He caught Arlette’s eye and she blushed. She felt sure that his look had contained a grain of something more than he showed to the others, but she could not be sure, and besides, this entire situation now felt faintly ridiculous. The backstage area was tiny and crammed full of musicians in varying stages of undress. There were also many other ladies, not unlike themselves, gathered around the musicians, giggling and jostling and making themselves, in Arlette’s opinion, look like nothing but desperate fools. There was not room for them in this place; it was hot and the smell of fresh sweat was almost overwhelming.
‘Mr Pickle ...’ she began.
‘Oh, now, please, I think it is time you were to call me Godfrey.’
‘Of course,’ she smiled. ‘Godfrey. I just wanted to say that that was a truly marvellous performance. Really. Electrifying. And it was gratifying to see Mr Novello in his box seemingly unable to control the impulse to dance.’
Godfrey smiled and shook his head. ‘Mr Novello?’ he repeated, in wonder. ‘Well, that is something, that really is.’
‘So, I thank you so much for the kind gift of the tickets. But now, I think we really must get back, and to ensure that Miss Miller gets home safely.’
The other two women both turned and threw her looks of sheer horror.
‘Well, Arlette,’ said Minu, ‘I must say that I have absolutely no intention of going home. And in fact I was going to see if perhaps Godfrey and some of his friends might like to join us at the Cygnet.’
Arlette looked at Minu aghast but had not managed to form a response before Godfrey smiled and said, ‘Well, I must say, that idea holds great appeal. I have far too much energy left to end the night here. Thank you. That is a very kind invitation.’
‘And I wondered, Godfrey,’ Minu continued audaciously, ‘your friend, over there, the gentleman who plays the double bass. Perhaps he could be persuaded to join us for the evening.’
Godfrey laughed. ‘You mean Horace? Oh, yes, I am sure he could be persuaded.’ He called Horace over and introduced him to the three of them. Arlette felt herself torn between two reactions. She would hate to imagine Minu and Lilian dancing the night away with Godfrey at the Cygnet Club without her, but equally, she had to get up for work the following morning and was feeling uncomfortable about the turn the evening was taking: this undignified hanging around backstage, the strange atmosphere around Minu and Lilian, this air of something beyond mere socialising. She had dreamed of seeing Godfrey once again for eight long weeks and this was not how she had hoped it to be. She thought of the quiet hours spent on Gideon’s chaise longue, the delicacy of their interlude in the perfumery at Liberty. There was none of that present in this situation. She did not want to be a part of this situation. But neither did she want to rob herself of time with Godfrey.
She sighed and said, ‘I’m afraid I do need to go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight, so I shall come along for a dance. But only one.’
Godfrey smiled at her. ‘Well, if there is to be only one dance tonight, Miss De La Mare, then I really will have to insist that it is with me.’
She looked into his eyes and saw it there: that look she had not seen for so long, a look filled with violent urges. Something hot and immediate flowed through her at his gaze, something that almost scorched her from the inside out. And she knew then that one dance would not be enough. That she would want to dance all night, until her feet were rubbed raw.
37
1995
THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT shone pale gold in the early afternoon sunshine. Betty and Alexandra strode in and towards the information desk, both filled with a sense of certainty that there was something within this building that would add a layer to their story.
‘Excuse me,’ Alexandra started in her throaty rasp. ‘We’re looking for work by a guy called Gideon Worsley. He was a portrait painter in the early twenties. Ever heard of him?’
The man behind the desk stared at Alexandra inscrutably for a moment and then nodded. ‘Gallery five,’ he said, and then pointed rather dramatically to the left, indicating a slight bend with a curve of his wrist.
Betty and Alexandra looked at each other and smiled. ‘You have his work?’ said Alexandra, disbelievingly. ‘Here?’
‘Gallery five,’ the man repeated slowly. ‘Follow the signs.’
They smiled at each other again and set off at a pace towards gallery five.
Betty almost laughed out loud as they chased each other through the corridors. To think, that a small piece of paper buried away deep inside the pocket of Arlette’s fur coat could have brought her here. It suddenly seemed the stuff of children’s adventures. They arrived at gallery five breathless and giggling quietly. It was a small gallery, and empty. They scanned the walls and immediately identified Gideon Worsley’s work: two medium-sized paintings, one of a black man in a bowler hat holding a viola, and the other of a young woman who was incontrovertibly and unmistakably a young Arlette De La Mare.
Betty grabbed Alexandra’s arm and inhaled loudly.
‘That’s her, isn’t it?’ Alexandra whispered.
Betty nodded and took two steps towards the painting.
Arlette was dressed in a chiffon and lace blouse with a small ribbon at the neck. She was turned away from the artist so that her face was almost in profile. Her hair was swept back in a small bun, with tendrils falling about her neck and face, and she was smiling softly. The painting was entitled, simply, Arlette.
Between the two paintings was a plaque. Betty read the description:
Gideon Worsley was a renowned portraitist of the early 1920s. He lived and painted in Chelsea, using as subjects musicians and socialites he met at the various jazz clubs and drinking establishments that sprang up in London in the wake of the Great War. Nothing much is known of the sitters in these works. The musician depicted in the Viola Player is thought to be a member of the world-celebrated Southern Syncopated Orchestra, but has never been properly identified. And it is believed that the mysterious Arlette was a shop-girl with whom Worsley was conducting an affair.
Worsley developed carpal tunnel syndrome in his late twenties and turned to photography as his chosen art form for the last years of his life. He died at the age of thirty-four, on the eve of his wedding to his second cousin Antoinette Worsley, after breaking his neck falling from his horse.
*
Betty looked at her watch and sighed. It was two fifteen the following afternoon. Amy’s phone call was now fifteen minutes late. She decided she would wait until two thirty and then she would give up. She made herself a roll-up and took it out onto the street. John Brightly was serving a customer to a soundtrack of the Pixies. He turned briefly at the sound
of Betty’s door opening and threw her one of his half-smiles. ‘Hello, trouble,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ she replied. She kept the front door open with her back and sank to her haunches. The sun was out and it shone on her in a narrow stripe through a small gap between the buildings opposite.
‘What’s happening?’ said John, turning to join her after saying goodbye to his customer.
‘I’m waiting for a phone call,’ she said, inhaling.
‘Oh, yeah, who from?’ John took out a cigarette and lit it, then sank to his own haunches against the wall of her building.
‘Amy Metz,’ she said, and then turned and smirked at him.
‘Amy Metz?’ he repeated.
‘She interviewed me yesterday,’ she said. ‘For a full-time nanny.’
His eyes widened. ‘Cool,’ he said.
‘You reckon?’
‘Yeah, why not?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I suspect she’ll be a nightmare to work for.’
‘Yeah, but you like the kids, right?’
She nodded. ‘The kids are great.’
‘Well then,’ he said, ‘just focus on that.’
She sighed. ‘Yes, but that’s the thing. What if I take the job, and love the kids but then hate her so much that I have to leave? That’s not fair on the kids, surely?’
John laughed. ‘Having Dom Jones and Amy Metz as parents isn’t fair on the kids.’
Betty laughed and then stopped when she heard the phone ringing in the hallway. She threw John a desperate look and ground her roll-up against the pavement. ‘Wish me luck,’ she said.
He looked at her and smiled. Then suddenly, softly, he put a hand against her face and said, ‘You don’t need any luck. You are luck.’ His eyes held her gaze and slowly he pulled his hand from her cheek. He looked embarrassed, as though he’d taken himself by surprise. ‘Go,’ he said, the phone still ringing insistently. ‘Your destiny awaits.’
Betty scrambled to her feet and grabbed the receiver, her face still smarting sweetly from John’s touch. ‘Yes?’ she said, rather brusquely, which was not at all how she’d intended to begin the conversation.
‘Betty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Amy Metz.’
‘Hello,’ she said, bluntly. It appeared that John Brightly had stolen her vocabulary.
‘Listen. It was really good meeting you yesterday. And I’ve gotta say, you were by far the best of the bunch. By a mile. But still, I have these misgivings, you know? All these other girls have got qualifications and references jumping out of their asses. You, you’ve got nothing. Just a nice personality and a back story. So what I’m gonna do is this. A trial. Two weeks. If you like it and I like you, then after that we’ll talk about a more permanent thing. I’ll give you the going rate, six an hour, and we can discuss a salary if we get to that point. What do you think?’
Betty nodded. And then she found her voice and said, ‘Oh. Yes. That sounds great.’
‘Great! I’ll need you to come in today, sign some legal stuff, nothing fancy, just some basic privacy stuff. Pretty standard for this kind of thing. Then we’ll start you properly tomorrow at eight. Yeah?’
‘Er, yeah.’
‘Can you get here at five?’
‘Sure.’
‘Cool. I’ll see you then.’
Betty put the phone down and sank onto the bottom step. She breathed away a rising sense of panic and then she opened the front door and smiled at John Brightly.
‘I got the job,’ she said quietly, too scared to hear the words out loud.
He smiled at her. ‘Of course you did,’ he said.
She felt waves of pleasure ripple through her belly at his words.
‘Shit,’ she said, biting her lip and relighting her half-smoked roll-up.
‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘A real kick-start for your CV.’
‘You think?’
‘Yeah. Of course it is. Listen,’ he looked at his watch, ‘I haven’t had any lunch yet. If I can get someone to cover this for me,’ he indicated his record stall, ‘will you come and have a bite with me. By way of celebration, if you like?’
‘A celebratory sandwich, you mean?’
‘Yeah, and a lemonade, if you’re up for it.’
She looked at John Brightly, let the essence of him wash over her for a second; his everyman demeanour, the smooth tanned arms, the face that gave nothing away, the thick head of hair that she sometimes found herself dreaming about running her fingers through, the tattoo on his wrist, the almost militaristic style of dressing. And then she thought about the more vulnerable side of John Brightly; the half-arthritic fingers and creaking joints, the slight tang of damp about his aroma, the hats he wore, hats he must have tried on in mirrors, turning his head this way and that to check the angles, caring about his image, caring about whether or not they suited him. And then that moment just now, the softest part of himself he’d yet shown her: the warm palm against her face, the words of gentle encouragement.
She had two hours before she needed to set off for Primrose Hill. She wanted to pop into Wendy’s, tell Rodrigo that she wouldn’t be coming into work for a couple of weeks (she wouldn’t hand in her notice just yet, not until she’d been offered the job properly). And she’d wanted to spend some time in the library, researching jazz orchestras and Gideon Worsley, but as important as that was, she knew that it could wait. For now.
‘A lemonade sounds good,’ she said. ‘But make it a strong one.’
38
1920
‘ARLETTE!’ GIDEON LEAPED up from his seat at the back of the Cygnet Club where he’d been talking to a man wearing a pink cravat. ‘I had no idea you were coming tonight. What a wonderful surprise!’
Arlette smiled at him, uncertainly. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘Gideon, I wasn’t expecting to see you here, either.’ She accepted a kiss on her cheek and saw Gideon’s face drop slightly at the sight of her entourage, coming in behind her.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Mr Pickle. I didn’t realise ...’
‘We’ve been to see Godfrey playing with his orchestra. At the Kingsway Hall.’ She said this quickly, breathily, as though she were lying. ‘It was absolutely marvellous,’ she finished. She moved aside so that Minu and Lilian could be greeted by Gideon and then watched awkwardly as Godfrey and Horace moved in to say hello, to shake hands and exchange pleasantries.
Arlette felt her spirits deflate. Although she and Gideon were probably widely held to be courting, in reality they had gone no further in their private moments than to hold hands. Gideon had made it plain that he would like to kiss her on many occasions, and on every occasion Arlette had fondly told him that she did not think she wished to kiss anyone. She saw Gideon as a handsome older brother, someone whose company she enjoyed, someone she looked forward to seeing and someone she felt she could trust. But she did not feel sufficiently passionate towards him to want to kiss him on his lips. But she was also aware that in spending time alone with him, that in encouraging his friendship and allowing moments of hand-holding and gentle affection, she had unwittingly been pulling him along on a lead, like a small dog. It was perfectly reasonable of him to assume that theirs was a special friendship within which there should be no room for anyone else.
And now, here she was, torn between the man who kept her safe and the man who made her feel mad with wanting.
‘So,’ Gideon was saying, his voice slightly betraying his disappointment in finding himself forced to share Arlette’s attentions, ‘I hear the performance was incredible. I’m sorry I missed it.’
‘Ah, Gideon, I will send you some tickets tomorrow, don’t you worry.’
‘And all these lovely ladies,’ Gideon continued, sounding slightly melancholy, ‘coming to see you. You must feel so flattered.’
‘Oh, indeed I do,’ Godfrey smiled. ‘Indeed I do. And now, well, Mam’zelle Arlette has to rush home to get her beauty sleep and she promised me a dance before she has to turn into a pump
kin so, if you don’t mind, I will whisk her away.’ He smiled heartily at Gideon, and Gideon smiled bravely back at him.
‘Of course,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Of course.’ He threw Arlette a slightly injured smile and then brought Lilian, Minu and Horace onto his banquette and started loudly ordering drinks for everyone.
‘I think our friend Gideon is worried that I am trying to steal you away from him,’ said Godfrey, his hand gently pressed against the small of Arlette’s back as they made their way towards the dance floor.
‘Oh,’ said Arlette. ‘No. I’m sure he isn’t. Because I do not belong to him.’
Godfrey stopped and looked at her. His face was a picture of charmed delight. ‘Well, no,’ he said. ‘Of course you don’t. A fine woman like you belongs to nobody.’
‘Absolutely, Mr Pickle.’
‘Godfrey.’
‘Yes. Godfrey.’ And then she smiled a smile she’d never known she was capable of producing. It was both innocent and worldly-wise. The smile of a woman who had experienced little, but felt a lot.
‘I have much respect for your friend Gideon,’ he continued.
‘As do I.’
‘He is a good man, with a good soul. I would wish him nothing but the best of everything.’
‘Me too.’
‘And I must say that I thought, from our last meeting, that he had laid a claim to your heart.’
‘Not in that way, Godfrey.’
They turned to face each other on the dance floor. The band were playing a torch song. The light was faded red and marbled with cigarette smoke. Godfrey smiled at Arlette and said, ‘Shall we?’ He offered her a hand, which sent a jolt of electricity through her body when she touched it. The other hand he brought down upon her hip where it burned a hole through her flesh. On the stage a middle-aged woman in a tight velvet dress sang songs of loneliness and heartbreak. Arlette smiled at Godfrey and he smiled back at her. Then he brought his face down to hers and for one extraordinary moment Arlette thought he was going to kiss her, here, on the dancefloor, in front of her friends, in front of Gideon, and she held her breath and thought, yes, let it be, let it be now. But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he put his mouth to her ear and said, ‘I would like to take you home, Miss De La Mare.’
